To appreciate thoroughly this contrast between the two admirals, it is necessary also to note how differently they were situated with regard to material for repairs. After the action of the 6th, Hughes found at Madras spars, cordage, stores, provisions, and material. Suffren at Cuddalore found nothing. To put his squadron in good fighting condition, nineteen new topmasts were needed, besides lower masts, yards, rigging, sails, and so on. To take the sea at all, the masts were removed from the frigates and smaller vessels, and given to the ships-of-the-line while English prizes were stripped to equip the frigates. Ships were sent off to the Straits of Malacca to procure other spars and timber. Houses were torn down on shore to find lumber for repairing the hulls. The difficulties were increased by the character of the anchorage, an open roadstead with frequent heavy sea, and by the near presence of the English fleet; but the work was driven on under the eyes of the commander-in-chief, who, like Lord Howe at New York, inspired the working parties by his constant appearance among them. "Notwithstanding his prodigious obesity, Suffren displayed the fiery ardor of youth; he was everywhere where work was going on. Under his powerful impulse, the most difficult tasks were done with incredible rapidity. Nevertheless, his officers represented to him the bad state of the fleet, and the need of a port for the ships-of-the-line. 'Until we have taken Trincomalee,' he replied, 'the open roadsteads of the Coromandel coast will answer.'"[188] It was indeed to this activity on the Coromandel coast that the success at Trincomalee was due. The weapons with which Suffren fought are obsolete; but the results wrought by his tenacity and fertility in resources are among the undying lessons of history.
While the characters of the two chiefs were thus telling upon the strife in India, other no less lasting lessons were being afforded by the respective governments at home, who did much to restore the balance between them. While the English ministry, after the news of the battle of Porto Praya, fitted out in November, 1781, a large and compact expedition, convoyed by a powerful squadron of six ships-of-the-line, under the command of an active officer, to reinforce Hughes, the French despatched comparatively scanty succors in small detached bodies, relying apparently upon secrecy rather than upon force to assure their safety. Thus Suffren, while struggling with his innumerable embarrassments, had the mortification of learning that now one and now another of the small detachments sent to his relief were captured, or driven back to France, before they were clear of European waters. There was in truth little safety for small divisions north of the Straits of Gibraltar. Thus the advantages gained by his activity were in the end sacrificed. Up to the fall of Trincomalee the French were superior at sea; but in the six months which followed, the balance turned the other way, by the arrival of the English reinforcements under Sir Richard Bickerton.
With his usual promptness the French commodore had prepared for further immediate action as soon as Trincomalee surrendered. The cannon and men landed from the ships were at once re-embarked, and the port secured by a garrison strong enough to relieve him of any anxiety about holding it. This great seaman, who had done as much in proportion to the means intrusted to him as any known to history, and had so signally illustrated the sphere and influence of naval power, had no intention of fettering the movements of his fleet, or risking his important conquest, by needlessly taking upon the shoulders of the ships the burden of defending a seaport. When Hughes appeared, it was past the power of the English fleet by a single battle to reduce the now properly garrisoned post. Doubtless a successful campaign, by destroying or driving away the French sea power, would achieve this result; but Suffren might well believe that, whatever mishaps might arise on a single day, he could in the long run more than hold his own with his opponent.
Seaports should defend themselves; the sphere of the fleet is on the open sea, its object offence rather than defence, its objective the enemy's shipping wherever it can be found. Suffren now saw again before him the squadron on which depended the English control of the sea; he knew that powerful reinforcements to it must arrive before the next season, and he hastened to attack. Hughes, mortified by his failure to arrive in time,—for a drawn battle beforehand would have saved what a successful battle afterward could not regain,—was in no humor to balk him. Still, with sound judgment, he retreated to the southeast, flying in good order, to use Suffren's expression; regulating speed by the slowest ships, and steering many different courses, so that the chase which began at daybreak overtook the enemy only at two in the afternoon. The object of the English was to draw Suffren so far to leeward of the port that, if his ships were disabled, he could not easily regain it.
The French numbered fourteen ships-of-the-line to twelve English. This superiority, together with his sound appreciation of the military situation in India, increased Suffren's natural eagerness for action; but his ships sailed badly, and were poorly handled by indifferent and dissatisfied men. These circumstances, during the long and vexatious pursuit, chafed and fretted the hot temper of the commodore, which still felt the spur of urgency that for two months had quickened the operations of the squadron. Signal followed signal, manœuvre succeeded manœuvre, to bring his disordered vessels into position. "Sometimes they edged down, sometimes they brought to," says the English admiral, who was carefully watching their approach, "in no regular order, as if undetermined what to do." Still, Suffren continued on, and at two P.M., having been carried twenty-five miles away from his port, his line being then partly formed and within striking distance of the enemy, the signal was made to come to the wind to correct the order before finally bearing down. A number of blunders in executing this made matters worse rather than better; and the commodore, at last losing patience, made signal thirty minutes later to attack (Plate XVII., A), following it with another for close action at pistol range. This being slowly and clumsily obeyed, he ordered a gun fired, as is customary at sea to emphasize a signal; unluckily this was understood by his own crew to be the opening of the action, and the flag-ship discharged all her battery. This example was followed by the other ships, though yet at the distance of half cannon-shot, which, under the gunnery conditions of that day, meant indecisive action. Thus at the end and as the result of a mortifying series of blunders and bad seamanship, the battle began greatly to the disadvantage of the French, despite their superior numbers. The English, who had been retreating under short and handy sail, were in good order and quietly ready; whereas their enemies were in no order (B). Seven ships had forereached in rounding to,[189] and now formed an irregular group ahead of the English van, as well as far from it, where they were of little service; while in the centre a second confused group was formed, the ships overlapping and masking each other's fire. Under the circumstances the entire brunt of the action fell upon Suffren's flag-ship (a) and two others which supported him; while at the extreme rear a small ship-of-the-line, backed by a large frigate, alone engaged the English rear; but these, being wholly overmatched, were soon forced to retire.
Pl. XVII.[ToList]
A military operation could scarcely be worse carried out. The French ships in the battle did not support each other; they were so grouped as to hamper their own fire and needlessly increase the target offered to the enemy; so far from concentrating their own effort, three ships were left, almost unsupported, to a concentrated fire from the English line.[190] "Time passed on, and our three ships [B, a], engaged on the beam by the centre of the English fleet and raked [enfiladed] by van and rear, suffered greatly. After two hours the 'Héros'' sails were in rags, all her running rigging cut, and she could no longer steer. The 'Illustre' had lost her mizzen-mast and maintopmast." In this disorder such gaps existed as to offer a great opportunity to a more active opponent. "Had the enemy tacked now," wrote the chief-of-staff in his journal, "we would have been cut off and probably destroyed." The faults of an action in which every proper distribution was wanting are summed up in the results. The French had fourteen ships engaged. They lost eighty-two killed and two hundred and fifty-five wounded. Of this total, sixty-four killed and one hundred and seventy-eight wounded, or three fourths, fell to three ships. Two of these three lost their main and mizzen masts and foretopmast; in other words, were helpless.
This was a repetition on a larger scale of the disaster to two of Hughes's ships on the 12th of April; but on that day the English admiral, being to leeward and in smaller force had to accept action on the adversary's terms, while here the loss fell on the assailant, who, to the advantage of the wind and choice of his mode of attack, added superiority in numbers. Full credit must in this action be allowed to Hughes, who, though lacking in enterprise and giving no token of tactical skill or coup d'œil, showed both judgment and good management in the direction of his retreat and in keeping his ships so well in hand. It is not easy to apportion the blame which rests upon his enemies. Suffren laid it freely upon his captains.[191] It has been rightly pointed out, however, that many of the officers thus condemned in mass had conducted themselves well before, both under Suffren and other admirals; that the order of pursuit was irregular, and Suffren's signals followed each other with confusing rapidity; and finally that chance, for which something must always be allowed, was against the French, as was also the inexperience of several captains. It is pretty certain that some of the mishap must be laid to the fiery and inconsiderate haste of Suffren, who had the defects of his great qualities, upon which his coy and wary antagonist unwittingly played.